On December 15, 1854 Manuel Dominguez sold 215 acres (0.87 km2) of the Rancho San Pedro for $500 to Los Angeles businessmen Henry Allanson and William Johnson.

Johnson and Allanson exported much of the salt produced by transporting it 10 mi (16 km) overland to the Port of San Pedro.

A U.S. government geologist wrote this account in 1890:[5] Within the limits of Redondo Beach, is a small salt-water lake, about three hundred yards from the ocean, and about five feet above high-water mark, which does not receive its water supply from the ocean, having an entirely different combination of salts, and possessing features that make it of much interest to the geologist and chemist.

The banks are low and gradually sloping, a sand dune intervenes between the ocean and the lake, and the bottom of the latter is a bed of clay.

Around this pond, on both sides, about thirty wells have been bored to an average depth of twelve feet into the clay that forms the bottom of the lake, and all of these yield good, soft drinking water.